About Us

About Us

Mission Statement

Serving the Merrill area through traditional and innovative services, T.B. Scott Free Library connects people to their community and the world, promotes literacy and civic engagement, encourages and supports life-long learning, ensures free and open access to ideas, and provides opportunities for recreation.

Vision Statement

To cultivate a library environment so vital that everyone desires to be an active library user.

Library History

1800s

1886Thomas Blythe (T.B.) Scott , lumberman, state Senator, and first mayor of Merrill dies. Scott wills $10,000 to the city to found a free public library, contingent upon the City’s provision of “suitable quarters” for the library within five years.

1889Special city election is held to establish a public library. Results: 82 for; 0 opposed.

1891Janet Russell begins duties as first librarian as, on March 24, T. B. Scott Free Library opens on first floor of City Hall (now the Old City Hall Apartments), among the first two dozen public libraries in the state. Previous to this time the community was served by rental libraries.

1898Merrill Traveling Library Association, one of the first in the state, formed. Communities throughout the county subscribe, including Tripoli, Russell, Gleason, Irma, Chat, and Heinemann.

1899Classification of books changed from a “good ordinary classification” to the Dewey Decimal system.

1900s

1901Separate “Children’s Room” approved by Library Board.

1905Helen Price begins duties as second librarian. By spring she starts the first English language classes for foreigners conducted in a Wisconsin public library.

1908Katherine Barker begins duties as third librarian, serves until 1914.

1909Request for $17,500 from Andrew Carnegie Foundation approved. Claude & Starck of Madison (associates of the famed Louis Sullivan) contracted as architects the following spring.

1910Task of re-cataloging the library collection begins.

1911New Carnegie library completed in Stange’s Park. (Moved in on August 21, 1911)

1914Winnifred Bailey begins duties as fourth librarian. During WWI takes active role in the war effort, including national mobilization of library materials for American soldiers.

1917Elisabeth Burke, fifth librarian, begins duties.

1919Edna D. Orr, sixth librarian, begins duties.

1922Nathalie Scribner, seventh librarian, eventually becomes the chief architect of the Wisconsin Valley Library Association, formed to encourage the sharing of resources among member libraries.

1926Thomas B. Scott, Jr., donates $10,000 to the library. Interest from the gift to be used for books and magazines.

1929Due to growth in services and collections, Children’s Dept. moved to the remodeled lower level of the Carnegie building.

1930During the depression library use increases dramatically as its budget decreases.

1935WPA grant helps with roofing and cement work on the library.

1945H. V. Kaltenborn, Merrill native and famous radio commentator, journalist and author donates $2,000 to the library for creation of a book fund.

1948Edna Kraft begins duties as eighth librarian.

1949Several centers set up in the county so that rural residents don’t have to travel directly to the main library for books.

1959The library wins a John Cotton Dana Honorable Mention Award for its comprehensive, outstanding and original methods of service. [An American Library Association Award sponsored by the H. W. Wilson Co.

1961The library begins participation in Project 6, a federally funded demonstration project of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission and the public libraries of Florence, Forest, Langlade, Lincoln, Oneida, and Vilas counties. The project strengthens the collections of established libraries and uses a bookmobile to provide service to areas where there is no public library.

1966Architects hired to plan an addition to the library.

1965T. B. Scott Library becomes a founding member of the new cooperative organization called the Wisconsin Valley Library Reference Service. Following passage of state legislation aimed at the formation of library systems, in 1972 this organization became the Wisconsin Valley Library Service.

1968Edna Kraft named Librarian of the Year by the Wisconsin Library Association.

1977Library selected to receive the Wisconsin Library Association’s Clarence B. Lester Memorial Award (Wisconsin’s Library of the Year) as an “outstanding example of what a library can do and be in a small community.”

1981N. Curtis LeMay begins duties as eleventh library director.

1983Paperback book deposit station begun in Irma at the Irma Stop ‘N’ Shop. The station operated until 1991.

1985First card catalog cards, book cards, and book pocket labels made with a new Apple IIe microcomputer.

1986Anita Gebert, member of the Board of Trustees since 1960, named State Library Trustee of the Year.

1991Library celebrates its centennial, with a community-wide “Birthday Party in the Park.” [This inspired the beginning of “Jennyfest” an annual historical celebration in Stange’s Park which continued for about nine years.]

1993Card catalog discarded; use of Dynix computerized circulation system begins.

2011All year celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Carnegie Building.

2013New Circulation system, Sierra, begins.

2016March 25 — Anniversary celebration of 125 years of library service in Merrill.

2017June 1 — Officially flipped the switch on solar power at the library. On the building addition, a new roof was installed with 79 solar collectors on the south and south-west sides to provide about 15 percent of the library’s annual electricity usage.